The St Petersburg Tournament of 1914 featured the joint winners of the 1914 All Russian Championship and players who had won at least one major tournament.
There were the veterans Blackburne and Gunsberg, established masters such as Tarrasch, Bernstein, Janowski, Niemzowitsch, Alyekhin and Marshall as well as the World Champion Lasker and his two most prominent rivals Rubinstein and Capablanca.

The tournament was divided into two sections. The first stage from the 21st April to the 6th of May was an all-play-all event with the first five finishers proceeding into the second stage which ran from the 10th of May to the 22nd of May. This second stage was a double round all-play-all with the final scores being cumulative from both sections.

It was expected that there would be a great struggle between Lasker, Capablanca and Rubinstein but disappointingly Rubinstein failed to make the final leaving Lasker and Capablanca to battle it out.
Lasker was 1½ points behind the Cuban at the start of the finals but in the end ran out the winner by a ½ point by scoring a truly magnificent 7 out of 8.